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Authors: Theresa Kishkan
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decade or two, when the community of Nicola Lake thrived, complete with grist mill and sawmill, bakery, laundry, harness shops and livery, banks and the courthouse, newspaper office and hotels. Sometimes I try to dream my way back to those busy streets, perhaps a girl on a compact bay mare, on her way to watch her father play polo against the Kamloops team.
It was as though we had known each other all our lives and had just been reunited after a long absence . . .
And sometimes the thought of never having lived here, never having come to womanhood in these dry hills, stabs at my heart like a thin knife, piercing me with such longing that I am breathless. I have dreamed of a girl and, waking, inhale particles of dust that might have contained her, the seeds of tender grass, the feathery hairs of her horseâs fetlock. A girl who might almost have existed, a life that might almost have occurred, everywhere and always.
A photograph of a girl with smaller children, her sisters and brother, dressed as though for church. They are standing in a yard of some sort, fence rails in evidence, a barn in the distance. The girls are all in sprigged dresses, ankle length for the oldest and below the knee for the two younger, pleated bodices edged in narrow lace, cuffs buttoned to the elbow. The boy is wearing a Norfolk jacket and short pants. They are smiling for the camera while behind them a grove of cottonwoods casts textured shadow on the sunlit yard, a rope swing dangles from one tall branch, and off to one side a line of sheets pauses, too, for the photographerâs eye, as if to tell the viewer that this family, posed for eternity in their Sunday best, also climbed trees, slept in beds with wind-dried linens wrapping them in an intimate embrace.
This reminds me of my growing collection of textiles for the exhibition, how bed linens are so rarely saved and cherished. Yet one pillowcase has come to me, its edge beautifully hem-stitched and with an intricate monogram in French whitework embroidery, two initials entwined like vines, D and R, around a central M, with exquisitely worked satin stitch flowers and leaves. The fabric is very thin and fine and will need careful treatment for display. But what impresses me most is not its handwork but the knowledge that it was almost certainly intended for a marriage, that lovers might have slept with their heads close upon it. If only there was a way to decode the memories contained in cottons and woollens, buckskin and beadwork, the shape of bodies impressed in fibres.
THE ITEMS ACCUMULATE as I hoped they would. The little jacketâs mystery is becoming clear; two Japanese families lived in my community until the War. One of the men was a boatbuilder, and their home was confiscated by authorities and resold to a local family. When I ask about them, I am told about his skill, shown boats that were his design. âAnd did she sew?â I ask the oldest women, and someone almost remembers that she did. So the jacket might have been a gift or a hand-me-down. I spend some time looking at examples of Japanese quilting, admiring the practicality â padded jackets were made for firemen and farmers in handsome dark blue cotton, the tiny white stitches making them strong enough to withstand many washings. And even earlier, the padding was used to make a kind of armour, channels filled with pieces of horn or metal. The shibori dye patterns are fascinating, too â ne maki , thread-resist rings, and mokume , woodgrain. The impulse to look at the natural world, all its cycles and phenomena, and to mirror these patterns in textiles is a thread of history that pulls me to follow it to the heart of a maze.
And, as well, I am taking the unravelled threads from a life and trying to reweave a companion piece, not the life itself but its image.
May 13, 1906: The Douglas Plateau
From her eastern window under the gable, muslin curtain drawn back by the breeze, Margaret could see morning
It was as though we had known each other all our lives and had just been reunited after a long absence . . .
And sometimes the thought of never having lived here, never having come to womanhood in these dry hills, stabs at my heart like a thin knife, piercing me with such longing that I am breathless. I have dreamed of a girl and, waking, inhale particles of dust that might have contained her, the seeds of tender grass, the feathery hairs of her horseâs fetlock. A girl who might almost have existed, a life that might almost have occurred, everywhere and always.
A photograph of a girl with smaller children, her sisters and brother, dressed as though for church. They are standing in a yard of some sort, fence rails in evidence, a barn in the distance. The girls are all in sprigged dresses, ankle length for the oldest and below the knee for the two younger, pleated bodices edged in narrow lace, cuffs buttoned to the elbow. The boy is wearing a Norfolk jacket and short pants. They are smiling for the camera while behind them a grove of cottonwoods casts textured shadow on the sunlit yard, a rope swing dangles from one tall branch, and off to one side a line of sheets pauses, too, for the photographerâs eye, as if to tell the viewer that this family, posed for eternity in their Sunday best, also climbed trees, slept in beds with wind-dried linens wrapping them in an intimate embrace.
This reminds me of my growing collection of textiles for the exhibition, how bed linens are so rarely saved and cherished. Yet one pillowcase has come to me, its edge beautifully hem-stitched and with an intricate monogram in French whitework embroidery, two initials entwined like vines, D and R, around a central M, with exquisitely worked satin stitch flowers and leaves. The fabric is very thin and fine and will need careful treatment for display. But what impresses me most is not its handwork but the knowledge that it was almost certainly intended for a marriage, that lovers might have slept with their heads close upon it. If only there was a way to decode the memories contained in cottons and woollens, buckskin and beadwork, the shape of bodies impressed in fibres.
THE ITEMS ACCUMULATE as I hoped they would. The little jacketâs mystery is becoming clear; two Japanese families lived in my community until the War. One of the men was a boatbuilder, and their home was confiscated by authorities and resold to a local family. When I ask about them, I am told about his skill, shown boats that were his design. âAnd did she sew?â I ask the oldest women, and someone almost remembers that she did. So the jacket might have been a gift or a hand-me-down. I spend some time looking at examples of Japanese quilting, admiring the practicality â padded jackets were made for firemen and farmers in handsome dark blue cotton, the tiny white stitches making them strong enough to withstand many washings. And even earlier, the padding was used to make a kind of armour, channels filled with pieces of horn or metal. The shibori dye patterns are fascinating, too â ne maki , thread-resist rings, and mokume , woodgrain. The impulse to look at the natural world, all its cycles and phenomena, and to mirror these patterns in textiles is a thread of history that pulls me to follow it to the heart of a maze.
And, as well, I am taking the unravelled threads from a life and trying to reweave a companion piece, not the life itself but its image.
May 13, 1906: The Douglas Plateau
From her eastern window under the gable, muslin curtain drawn back by the breeze, Margaret could see morning
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